ABSTRACT: An interview made by the students of the Istituto Sperimentale di S. Stefano, a village with "a strong socialist tradition". First of all, Sciascia warns that, despite the fact that he was "born only a couple of kilometres from here in a direct line", he is not familiar with the area. "I'm impressed by the isolation between one municipality and the other of the same province...there's a desert". The first questions refer to the profession (or mission?) of the teacher in the Sicilian reality ("it is an ornament"), to literature ("it blows where it wants to"), to the progress and the defects of Sicily ("we Sicilians have a persistent lack of hope", the Sicilian bourgeoisie is "mafiosa"), etc. Asked about what has changed in the Sicilian mafia, Sciascia replies, "It has become an urban and parapolitical phenomenon"...Next come questions concerning the writer's literary work, his books and his characters. Sciascia says there is a diaphragm, in Italy, between the writer and the people, starting from th

e language. The students then ask questions on the writers, on contemporary art, on terrorism and on the Moro (2) affair. Lastly, they ask Sciascia to give his opinion on present-day Italy. He replies that "it is a reality on which we can hardly use our intellectual power...because we are overwhelmed by emotionality".

(L'ORA, May 9, 1979)

He talked about school and literature, about his books and about himself, about politics and the Red Brigades (3), about Sicily and other issues. It has been an unusual public interview, a constant flow of accurate, precise and occasionally provocative questions addressed to Leonardo Sciascia by the students of the Istituto Sperimentale of S. Stefano, who had explicitly invited him to visit their school.

The village lies in the middle of a mountainous, wild area, whose main resource is sheep farming. The road from Palermo crosses an apparently uninhabited plateau, with no trees or houses, that bears the signs of an extensive and poor farming activity. Beyond Santo Stefano, further South, lies the valley of the Megazzolo, populated by gardens and orchards that represent Bivona's main resource. Further on, the harsh area of Cianciana, an arid area with deserted sulphur mines, hardly any crops, and worn out by emigration. In Santo Stefano there is a persistent socialist tradition. It is the village of Lorenzo Panepinto, one of the martyrs of the farmers' revolt, who was killed by the mafia. He was an intellectual, a school teacher. The experimental school evokes his memory, with its dedicated teachers, its hardworking students, so acutely aware of the problems of their land.

"We were preparing lofty and pompous words to greet you - said a girl at the beginning of the meeting with Sciascia - "when we remembered the shivers which each of us felt down the spine when reading for the first time "Le parrocchie di Regalpetra". There: these words are the most appropriate to get in touch with Sciascia the writer, but first and foremost, with the school teacher.

The experimental school is really experimental. It includes a lower biennium and a higher biennium of secondary school studies, but with different programs and methods compared to the other schools. It took struggles, real, popular struggles, and even a strike in the entire village, to obtain such a school in Santo Stefano and to defend it. They wanted it to be more linked with the needs and problems of the area, that is to the agricultural law. But the ministry decided it needed a linguistic and pedagogic orientation, and that is how it is.

Reference was made to the school and to the use of Sciascia's books in their greeting messages to the guest by professor Grazia Bullone, headmaster of the secondary school of Bivona, from which the school of Santo Stefano depends on, by professor Stefano Centinaro, professor of literature, by the coordinator Carmela Caltagirone and by the student Giovanna Citarrella.

Then the extraordinary interview started. The boys and girls rose one by one and asked questions. All the others (the hall was overcrowded) listened with great attention. Frequent applauses marked the most significant answers.

Marcello Cimino

Sciascia: "Before starting this pattern of questions and answers, I'd like to tell you I was born only a few kilometres from here in a straight line, and yet I am not familiar with this area. I've been here only once, coming back from Cianciana where I had held a lecture on Alessio Di Giovanni. Bivona, for example, is a name that reminds me of the relations between St. Ignatius with the college of Jesuits and the letters he exchanged with an aristocratic lady here, which are contained in a book called "Saint Ignatius and women". Bivona also reminds me of the existence of a sub-prefecture. And that's all. Considering I was born only a few kilometres away, I am impressed by the isolation there is between one municipality and the other of the same province. Moreover, this area is literally deserted. A fairly racist professor of ours believes he can trace a map of the Sicilian intelligence, and claims that this area is deprived of it. It is absolutely false. I believe there are conditions here which have not ena

bled the intelligence to develop and flourish. It is true that there is a desert. The only thing after Alessio Di Giovanni (poet and a scholar of local dialects, born in Cianciana in 1873) to be written about this reality is that beautiful book by Giuliana Saladino on Cianciana, which I hope you are all familiar with. I have nothing else to add. Ask me whatever you want, freely, disregarding the age gap which unfortunately exists between us".

Q: (a teacher): "These young people who attend this school are slightly perplexed: speaking about the mission of educating? Is it rhetoric or vain poetry?"

A: "It's best to talk about it in terms of a profession".

Q: "You once wrote, 'I am disgusted by those who extol the merits and pleasures of such a job (teacher) from the outside. Here, and in many places of Sicily, teaching is like the work of a miner, who descends into the mine. I cannot deny, however, that in other places and in different conditions, I could obtain some satisfaction from my work as a teacher'. Which might these other places and conditions be?"

A: "This passage is very personal, because it concerns a special moment of my life. Here, in our reality, culture is not conceived as an isolated fact, as a job, as something we all need and use, which is necessary to understand the world, to explain it to ourselves, to understand history and our situation with respect to history. Culture has always been conceived as an ornament, as something which has nothing to do with the conditions of life. To me, therefore, entering a classroom with forty children, thirty of which were hungry, and having to explain history. I could go no further than World War I, because we were supposed to talk about the past only in rhetoric terms: this to me was not only absurd, but also slightly evil. Today the conditions of the school are extremely different. The school no longer exists, in a certain sense. Perhaps in the province, in certain villages, it still assumes a certain value, but only in terms of exhortation, because I notice that here in Santo Stefano you have a secondar

y school specialized in languages and pedagogy. What about agriculture? It's absurd that there is no secondary school with an agricultural specialization. Therefore the school is a bit like in my time. It is a small ornament. And it becomes slightly absurd for you to listen to your teachers while they talk about linguistics, when you are surrounded by so many real problems. The profession of teaching, and even the profession of learning, in these conditions, continues to be absurd."

Q: "Do you think the school still maintains the monopoly in educating the young?"

A: "No. And I think it never detained such monopoly. Especially nowadays."

Q: "In a mass school, the old way of considering literature as a privileged subject, no longer makes sense. Which address, in your opinion, should literature follow in order to be more useful?"

A: "Literature should follow no address. Literature blows wherever it wants. There is no way to channel it, to direct it toward specific results. The exercise of literature should necessarily be free. The problem, rather, is how this literature should be introduced. Ours is a slightly poor literature, even a boring one. Therefore it is necessary to offer a prospect of it which is closer to the interests - so to say - of the mass, even if I dislike the term 'mass'. The mass school in Italy is a bit like that: everyone on stage. In a mass school, instead, everyone should be given the same favourable conditions, and the best will then emerge...I am among those who still believe in a system based on merit. I'm not a reactionary, but I believe one cannot gain access to a profession without a specific knowledge. A literature teacher will perhaps do little harm if he mistakes Petrarca with Boccaccio, but houses must be built, bridges must be planned, the ill must be assisted and the defendants must be defended, and

all this requires knowledge, and those who lack it shouldn't exert a given profession".

Q: "The introduction to the book 'Le parrocchie di Regalpietra', contains this bitter thought: 'God knows when the sundial will tell the right time, that time which so many people in the world consider the right time'. Don't you think this time has come? We participate in the affluent society, Our houses now contain television sets, radios, refrigerators, and all those appliances that make our life easier. But do you consider it a right time for Sicily?"

A: "There are no doubts about the fact that we have reached that material progress which we call welfare. However, this does not translate into an effective growth of Southern Italy; on the contrary, it corresponds to a further impoverishment. This welfare - cars and home appliances - is paid for, in Sicily, by at least 700,000 emigrants who live in far worse conditions than their families here. No, I don't believe it is the right time. On the contrary, what is occurring on a national scale forces us to come to terms with an aggravation of that which is commonly referred to as the Southern issue".

Q: "In the book 'Gli zii di Sicilia', it says that '...I believe in the Sicilians who speak little, who do not fret or suffer within'. Don't you think this is a symptom of resignation and of our defeat? Wouldn't it be better instead to show this sufferance and the pain of injustice, to uphold the values of a more humane society?"

A: "There is a type of Sicilian who is an extrovert, very amiable and lawyer-like, so to say. Generally speaking, this type of Sicilian who talks too much is the same who undertakes a political career, and therefore a parliamentary one, without distinction of parties. Often these are the worst type of Sicilians. Clearly, the other Sicilians should break their silence, but in terms of humanity, I say they are the best".

Q: "The Sciascia of 'Il Contesto' is considered to be the one who embodies in his thought the anguish of the man who has been humiliated in his freedom and dignity. Do you consider this opinion accurate?"

A: "Yes, I can recognize myself in this opinion. They talk of me as the author of 'Il Contesto' because this is the book which raised most controversy, most resentment. But 'Il Contesto' is the result of a whole vision of the Italian events".

Q: "You recently wrote on 'Il Giornale di Sicilia' and said in a televised interview that the reluctance of the Sicilian population to the ideas that change the world, and the lack of public spirit represent the worst evil of the Sicilian reality. Could you explain the historical reasons for these defects, and tell us how the school could contribute to overcoming them?"

A: "The historical roots of this are fairly remote and articulate. At any rate, we can say they lie in the perpetual insecurity of the Sicilian people toward history, in the fact that this island has been at the same time an island and yet also open as a continent to invasions and dominations. In any case, we Sicilians have a persistent lack of hope, a mistrust toward ideas, because ideas, even the ones that seemed new, have always become the means used by a certain social class which we can roughly label as bourgeois-mafioso. I would like there to be a bourgeoisie in Sicily. The Sicilian one is a mafia-like bourgeoisie, even when it doesn't seem like it. A bourgeoisie that operates without a vision of tomorrow, that exploits certains situations like it was once said about the sulphur mines: until robbery. The burglar-like exploitation of the sulphur mines was the exploitation of those entrepreneurs who were concerned about extracting as much material as possible from the mine, without worrying about the fut

ure of the mine itself or of the safety of those who worked there. Now this class seems to be unmovable. The heir of the aristocracy, it behaved in an even more ruthless way than the aristocracy. This is why the Sicilians no longer believe in ideas. And in fact, once they do start believing in them, there comes something that makes them disbelieve again. For example, the Milazzo Operation - it is an opinion which I have always defended - was a way of pushing back the Sicilians into the mistrust toward ideas".

Q: "There are no doubts about the fact that Father Diego La Mattina was a heretic. Can you give us further explanations regarding his heresy? Have you discovered anything new? Explanations that could help us understand why Father Diego remained faithful to his firm idea, upholding the dignity of man?"

A: "No, I have no further explanations, apart from those found at the time on Father Diego La Mattina. I attempted some assumptions. I thought his was a social type of heresy, more than a theological one, but I went no further than that. In any case, heresy is in itself a major fact, and he who defends his heresy is always a man who upholds the dignity of man. We need to be heretics, we need to risk being heretics, or we are lost. The Catholic Church was not the only one to be afraid of heresies. Even the Communist Party of the U.S.S.R. was afraid of heresy, and in the newly-risen power there is always this fear of heresy. Every man, every one of us, in order to be free and faithful to his dignity, should always be a heretic."

Q: "I'd like to know if there is a similarity between you, a contemporary writer, and your historical characters, such as Di Blasi, or Fra Diego La Mattina, which you closely investigated."

A: "Perhaps there are similarities; but to me it's easier to speak about the fondness I have always had for these heretic, rebellious, characters, these underdogs. In a certain sense, it is their defeat which fascinated me, because I don't want to be defeated myself. In other words, I would like it if Sicily were not defeated, if reason didn't always succumb in Sicily. Hence my fondness for these characters. But I was also fond of another character, which would once have been labeled as a negative character, such as the Abbot Vella, who was a forger, a swindler. Apart from the sympathy one can have for him, I acknowledge him to be a person who in a certain sense rebelled against privilege. He forged to uphold Sicily's rights against the baronial power. You see, my sympathy derives from this, from the fact that he was a means of struggle against the baronial power. All of Sicily's problems - I repeat it - begin from the baronial power which was then transmitted to that class which I call bourgeois-mafioso".

Q: "Which book and which character are most autobiographical?"

A: "Candido".

Q: "What has changed in the Sicilian mafia from the '50s to date?"

A: "From a rural phenomenon such as it was in the beginning, the mafia has become an urban and parapolitical phenomenon: what happened was a sort of integration in the establishment. The mafia is no longer apparently recognizable as it was once. Picturesque characters have been eliminated, and the anti-mafia committee has played a role in this sense, by eliminating the picturesque parts of the mafia and bringing it a bit further more into the establishment."

Q: "Through your books, you have written a lot about Sicilian facts and characters. Which contribution could the rediscovery of the local cultures give to the renewal of culture and therefore of the civic society?"

A: "I believe the rediscovery of the local cultures is an operation to be done seriously. Unfortunately, structuralism, for example, has entered our universities. Structuralism is something that works more or less like a ham slicer, and destroys the local cultures. All that which has been preserved is thanks to those poor people who gathered an incredible quantity of traditions, customs and popular literature, without the aid of recorders and other means. I'm talking about Pitrè, Salomone Marino, Gaetano Di Giovanni. The universities live on their achievements. If, instead, a serious work were carried out, this would be the moment of rediscovering the local cultures. In a certain sense, I consider myself a person who rediscovers the local cultures."

Q: "A lot of the current culture proclaims itself popular. But the intellectual still belongs to a class which places him outside and above the ordinary people, don't you think?"

A: "This depends on the nature of the Italian culture. To begin with, there is a diaphragm between everyday language and the language of a writer. Also, there is the tradition according to which an intellectual is always a bit of a courtesan: a bit of a conformist, someone who always sides with the establishment. No doubt this aspect persists, but it is equally true that the barrier between everyday language and the language of the writers, for example, has been overcome, has been crossed by a writer such as Pirandello (4). Not by Verga (5), who possibly enhanced this diaphragm. But I think writers such as Pirandello, who were followed by writers such as Moravia, have broken this diaphragm. I also believe the Italian writer has slightly changed. Clearly, there persists the tendency to write manifestos, statements, as if the writer were really important, whereas he isn't. I personally believe I have made an attempt to write for as wide an audience as possible. I'm not saying this was deliberate, because it is

hypocritical to say that the writer writes with the purpose of being understood by the farmer and the factory worker. The writer writes for himself and for the other selves. In me there is this sense of being a people, this belonging to everyday life, in touch with the reality, and in this sense I think I am a slightly different writer from the Italian average, and there are others like myself."

Q: In 'Le Parrocchie di Regalpietra', I read that you consider pity as a terrible feeling. A person should love or hate, never feel pity. Doesn't this statement conflict with the bases of a widespread morale?"

A: "At the end of fascism, I had a certain feeling of pity, of which I later regretted because I saw the return of fascism in an ever stronger way, as it perhaps is. I then wrote this retraction concerning pity. Now I must frankly admit that at this precise moment I feel full of pity."

Q: "Which are your favourite contemporary writers?"

A: "Calvino (6), first and foremost. Then Moravia (7), Gadda (8). And there are many other writers I like. For example, Sicilian writers. But then one might suspect this is simply because I too am Sicilian. Vincenzo Consolo, Giuseppe Bonaviri, Sebastiano Addamo. Among the writers of the generation immediately before mine, the one I like best is Vitaliano Brancati (9)."

Q: "What do you think about the artistic manifestations in the context of the crisis of values which affects our society?"

A: "Those demonstrations that rely entirely on public money are wrong and useless. Spontaneous demonstrations, on the other hand, are of some interest. In thirty years, no one has ever managed to organize culture seriously.

The organization of culture is in bureaucratic hands, and the money is distributed with electoral criteria. Even archeology is ruled by lobbyist criteria. The impression is that excavations are made only in places where a deputy manages to lobby effectively. Therefore, they are things that have little to do with culture, even though sometimes the results can be accidentally good."

Q: "In an interview on TV, you once said: 'God is dead. So is Marx. But I feel good.' What did you mean by that?"

A. "It's a sentence by an American humorist. God is dead, so is Marx, and I don't feel too great. I changed it by saying: 'God is dead, so is Marx, and I feel great, because I continue to write, I continue to see things the way they should be seen. But it isn't an apocalyptical statement, because I'm not sure God is dead nor that Marx is dead, even though we should experience them with a lot of reasonableness. I am not in favour of atheistic statements. On the contrary, I believe there is no such thing as an atheist, that the atheist is an invention of the priests."

Q: "What do you think about the terrorist acts that occurred in the past years, and which climaxed in Moro's kidnapping?"

A. "I think they're disgraceful, but I think it is necessary to analyse the causes. This is the difference between certain intellectuals who fideistically write against the Red Brigades and myself. I believe these years are disgraceful, condemnable in themselves. But if we do not explain the causes, we will be forced to coexist with terrorism. Terrorism will become an endemic fact in Italy unless we try removing the causes".

Q. "Can you give us your view of present-day Italy?"

A. "It is a reality on which we can use our intellectual capacities very little at this moment because we are submerged by emotionality. Any attempt to explain the events rationally is immediately deceived. For example, I used to believe that the Red Brigades at this point couldn't kill Moro, in view also of their internal logic. Instead, they say they have carried out the sentence. Clearly, this is a country in which there occur the same events as in any other part of the world; but here they take place with an incredible crudeness and confusion. The confusion in this country has reached its climax. For example, you may have noticed the division between the those who wanted to negotiate with the Red Brigades and those who refused to. It was a meaningless thing, because the pro-negotiation front includes the Socialist Party, LC (10), the bishops, Moro's friends and family; on the other side, the DC (12) and the Communist Party. The former front had a clearer position, the other was confused, and the result i

s that the Red Brigades have taken no account of that alliance between bishops and extremists, and acted in a way that does not even respond to an internal logic, to the logic of the revolutionary movement. First of all, they should have considered that the abolition of the death penalty in Italy was a revolutionary fact, and that by reintroducing it, they offered the opportunity for the State to reintroduce it as well. At any rate, in so doing they implicitly endorsed those who ask that the death penalty once again become a law of the Italian State".

Q. "Don't you think the Italian terrorists are among the heretics you mentioned above?"

A. "No. I really don't think so. I know heresy is always something that causes progress. In terms of what it causes, terrorism is something that causes a regression. No, I don't think this terrorism is effectively revolutionary. On the contrary, I believe it is a reactionary instrument, even though the executors' purpose is revolutionary. In the effects it will cause, terrorism is reaction, not heresy".

(Transcription published on "L'Ora", May 9, 1979).

Translator's notes

(1) SCIASCIA LEONARDO. (Racalmuto 1921 - Palermo 1990). Writer, author of well-known novels ("Le parrocchie dor Regalpetr", 1956; "Il giorno della civetta" 1961; Todo modo, 1974), but also known as a polemist, he took active part in the Italian civil life for at least twenty years. During one legislature (1979-1983) he was also radical member of Parliament, actively intervening in civil rights campaigns (Tortora case, etc.).

(2) MORO ALDO. (Maglie 1916 - Rome 1978). Italian politician. Secretary of the Christian Democratic Party (1959-65), mastermind of the Centre-Left policy. Several times minister as of 1956, Prime Minister (1963-68, 1974-76) president of the Christian Democratic Party as of 1956, he favoured the participation of the Communist Party (PCI) in the government, outlining the hypothesis of a so-called "third stage" (after those of "centrism" and "centre-left") of the political system. He was kidnapped by the Red Brigades on 16 March 1978 in Rome and found dead on 9 May of the same year.

(3) RED BRIGADES. (Known as BR). Clandestine terrorist organization of the extreme Left, born and operating in Italy as of 1969. By proclaiming the revolution of the working classes, the organization tried to open several fronts of armed revolt against the State and the political establishment, carrying out a series of attempts, wounding, kidnapping and assassinationg politicians, journalists, magistrates and industrial executives. Its leader was Renato Curcio. In 1978 the organization kidnapped and assassinated Aldo Moro.

(4) LUIGI PIRANDELLO. (Agrigento 1867 - Roma 1936). Italian writer and playwright; Nobel Prize in 1934. His novels explore the subject of the tragedy of the individual, who is seen as isolated in an alien reality (Il Fu Mattia Pascal, 1904; Novelle per un anno, collected as of 1922). This subject is best expressed by Pirandello in his plays, where the human condition and even the interexchangeability between folly and sanity, is ironically and mercilessly unveiled. The result is a sort of deserate nihilism, whose theatrical solution is the prevalence of the "appearances", the overturning of any "certainty" and the overlapping of the "stage within the stage". Among his masterpieces are "Liolà" (1916), Pensaci Giacomino!" (1916), "Coś è (se vi pare)" (1917), "Il berretto a sonagli" (1917), "Il giuoco delle parti" (1918), "Ma non è una cosa seria" (1918), "Enrico IV" (1922), "Sei personaggi in cerca d'autore" (1922), "Questa sera si recita a soggetto" (1930).

(5) GIOVANNI VERGA. (Catania 1840-1922). Italian writer, the highest exponent of realism. His first novels, 'Una peccatrice' (1866), 'Storia di una capinera' (1871), 'Eva' (1873), 'Tigre Reale' (1875), 'Eros' (1875) belong to a late Romantic stage. The realist turnabout, foreshadowed in the short story 'Nedda' (1874), continued with the stories 'Vita dei campi' (1880) and with the novel 'I Malavoglia' (1881) and 'Novelle Rusticane' (1883), 'Mastro don Gesualdo' (1889). This is the core of Verga's major fiction work: a revisitation of the Sicilian world, carried out with 'detachment' and at the same time with a deep sympathy for the destiny of the poor. Other works include 'Il marito di Elena' (1882), the collection of short stories 'Per le vie' (1883), 'Vagabondaggio' (1887), 'I ricordi del capitano Arce' (1891), 'Don Candeloro e C.i.' (1894), the plays 'Cavalleria Rusticana' (1894), 'In portineria' (1895), 'Dal tuo al mio' (1903).

(6) ITALO CALVINO. (Santiago de Las Vegas, Cuba, 1923 - Siena 1985). Italian writer. After a neorealistic stage (Il sentiero dei nidi di ragno, 1947), he wrote fanciful novels such as 'Il visconte dimezzato' (1952), 'Il barone rampante' (1957), 'Il cavaliere inesistente' (1959), 'Se una notte d'inverno un viaggiatore' (1979), and a book for children, 'Marcovaldo' (1963).

(7) ALBERTO MORAVIA. (Rome 1907 - 1991). Italian writer. He started writing very young obtaining considerable success with the novel 'Gli Indifferenti' (1929), a bitter portrait of bourgeois society; his following novels also analyse the Italian society in a dry style ('Le ambizioni sbagliate', 1935; 'Agostino', 1944; 'Racconti romani', 1954; 'La ciociara', 1957). Other works explore existentialist and psychoanalitical subjects: 'Il disprezzo' (1954), 'La noia' (1960), 'Io e lui' (1971), 'La vita interiore' (1978), '1934' (1982).

(8) CARLO EMILIO GADDA. (Milan 1893 - Rome 1973). Italian writer, who renewed twentieth-century fiction through an ingenious use of dialects, slang, technicism and a constant distortion of the traditional narrative techniques. 'L'Adalgisa' (1944), 'Quer pasticciaccio brutto de via Merulana' (1957), 'Novelle del ducato in fiamme' (1953), 'Accoppiamenti giudiziosi' (1963), 'La cognizione del dolore' (1963), 'Eros e Priapo' (1967), 'La meccanica' (1970), 'Novella seconda' (1971).

(9) VITALIANO BRANCATI. (Pachino, Siracusa 1907 - Turin 1954). Italian satyrical writer. 'Don Giovanni in Sicilia' (1941), 'Il bell'Antonio' (1949), 'Paolo il caldo' (posthumous, 1955).

(10) LOTTA CONTINUA (LC). One of the most important and widespread political movements of the extreme left, established in 1969 in Turin. In 1971 it created the homonymous newspaper, which became immediately popular. It detached the extraparliamentary Left from the laborite prejudicial, penetrating the youth and students' milieu, the conscripts, the prisons, etc. Its chief leader was the journalist and writer Adriano Sofri.

(11) DEMOCRAZIA CRISTIANA (DC). Italian Christian/Catholic party. Founded with this name after World War II, heir of the Popular Party, created after World War I by a Sicilian priest, Don Luigi Sturzo. After the elections of 1948, in the climate of the cold war, it became the party of relative majority, occasionally coming very close to obtaining the absolute majority. Key component of every cabinet, it has been detaining power uninterruptedly for half a century, strongly influencing the development of Italian society in a conservative sense. At the elections of 1992 for the first time it dropped below 30% of votes.